“Last-mile connectivity between banks and their corporate clients is painful,” said Jeanne Capachin, research vice president, IDC Financial Insights. “Banks need to improve the user experience and standardize their approach. With a strong connectivity platform solution, banks can increase transparency, improve straight-through processing and focus on developing new solutions.”

Hosted by SAP as an on-demand offering, SAP Financial Services Network aims to facilitate multi-bank routing, multi-format payments, on-boarding and corporate services application development and deployment. The network is also intended to facilitate core transaction management among banks, corporations and treasury service providers. As part of the development of the network, banks and corporations are contributing their expertise and resources to create a real-world road map that helps deliver full financial integration, connectivity and service among all participants.

“The road map being put into place will bring about new applications that enhance how corporations and corporate treasurers communicate with their banks,” said Don Trotta, global head, Banking Industry Development, SAP. “SAP is uniquely positioned to help deliver business applications in a comprehensive offering with end-to-end connectivity. Taken together, SAP Financial Service Network aims to help lower costs, improve service, simplify compliance and allow for new levels of innovation in bank-to-corporate services.”